Never really over: What will the next 10 years of Katy Perry's career look like?

What will the next 10 years of Katy Perry’s career look like?

What will the next 10 years of Katy Perry’s career look like?

In 1998, Train's "Meet Virginia" dropped, and the world was introduced to a group that had the capability to both produce incredibly catchy pop music, and as we would discover three years later, the ability to pump out stadium-worthy anthems such as "Drops of Jupiter," which was released in 2001.

The group is lead by Pat Monahan, a person from the great city of Erie, Pennsylvania. I don’t think I’m trying to compare him to Anthony Kiedis, but I do think his ability to string words that rhyme together at a slightly faster pace than, say, other dentist office acts like James Blunt seems to keep Train afloat.

This ability was on display in "Meet Virginia" and was certainly on display in 2009 when the band released "Hey Soul Sister," eight years after the career-defining, stadium-worthy work.

Train is better than Jason Mraz or James Blunt because they were able, somehow, to produce "Drops of Jupiter." They weren't a one-trick pony, rhyming somewhat quickly about middle-aged women who smoke cigarettes for an entire career.

We’re going to do next is compare Kary Perry to Train, and you know, just hang with us, OK?

Katy Perry is in, or passing, her "Hey Soul Sister" phase currently. It's hard to tell which direction she's heading, and how much she has left in the tank.

In 2008, we got our first big taste of what Perry could do with "I Kissed a Girl." Two years later, her stadium-worthy banger "Firework" dropped on "Teenage Dream," which will likely wind up being her career-defining album.

Now, seven-to-nine years later, she's still releasing pop songs, which is expected and perfectly OK.

If you look at the Train trajectory, "Meet Virginia" and "Hey Soul Sister" make total sense together on a playlist.

The Perry trajectory has left us with "Swish Swish" (2017) and "Never Really Over" (2019), two releases that would make for a pretty bizarre twist in a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

I guess I propose this: forget the Taylor Swift Feud. Forget "Swish Swish," forget the music video (maybe remember Terry Crews' efforts to save it), and just replace that hole in your memory with a picture of Perry in a hamburger costume hugging Swift.

So let’s look at "Never Really Over" and "Hey Soul Sister" -- decent, late-career pop efforts that feature a person rhyming somewhat faster than their peers (more talented vocalists such as Adele or Kelly Clarkson wouldn't, I suppose, have to get as creative in their songwriting. That is not to take anything away from Perry's strengths, this is more nitpicking than anything, but the three of them are different types of pop stars).

But what's somewhat hard to swallow about "Never Really Over" is that it feels more like a 2019 pop song than a Katy Perry song. Much has been made about the fact that streaming is changing songwriting.

I don’t want this to get construed as a call for Warped Tour-era Katy Perry, but I am curious: will we get a “return-to-form” album before she's 40 that blows us away? Something that can stand next to “Teenage Dream”? I certainly hope so, and perhaps with "Swish Swish" in the rear-view, we can begin to look forward to what Perry has left, and what she can do with it.

(Also, she’s 20 years younger than Pat Monahan, which helps.)

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